'06 State Of The Union - Thoughts, Hopes, and Fears
So it turns out I missed mere sentences of the SOTU in favor of prayer, but the good news is that I also missed the Dem response. (That, and I also saved tons of money on my car insurance by ...) So here are a bunch of slightly more organized thoughts than those presented in my live-blog :
* Get your transcripts here.
* Apparently, the Prez ended with including legislative reform to make AIDS medication more widely available. The catch is he's gonna use faith based initiatives through mostly black churches to do so. Works for me; Dems oppose, and they mess with their hold on the black vote.
* I'm now watching post-SOTU coverage on CNN, and there's some nut using a telestrator to point to only Dems clapping when Bush admitted that social security reform was defeated. I have two thoughts: 1 nobody under 50 that wants to see social security money when they retire should have seen that and be able to vote Dem; and 2 John Madden needs a CNN anchor job.
* The same coverage had the entire blogosphere to pick 2 worthy analysts, and the best they could do was Andrew Sullivan and Adriana Huffington? The worse part is I either have to watch that or Hannity and Colmes ... um ... er ... ESPN it is.
* Turns out that FOXNews' live coverage is 0.05 seconds faster than CNN, but the president has a skin condition on FOX. I didn't bother to test the networks, and I forgot about CSPAN.
* Most biting 'graph of the speech: "Yet there is a difference between responsible criticism that aims for success, and defeatism that refuses to acknowledge anything but failure. Hindsight alone is not wisdom. And second-guessing is not a strategy."
* Best 'graph of the speech: "Far from being a hopeless dream, the advance of freedom is the great story of our time. In 1945, there were about two dozen lonely democracies on Earth. Today, there are 122. And we are writing a new chapter in the story of self-government — with women lining up to vote in Afghanistan ... and millions of Iraqis marking their liberty with purple ink ... and men and women from Lebanon to Egypt debating the rights of individuals and the necessity of freedom. At the start of 2006, more than half the people of our world live in democratic nations. And we do not forget the other half — in places like Syria, Burma, Zimbabwe, North Korea, and Iran — because the demands of justice, and the peace of this world, require their freedom as well."
* Puttign foreign policy first was a good decision, because this is where Bush shines, and this is where Bush makes a renewed Patriot Act and NSA surveillance make sense. His idealism resonates (or at least it does with me), especially because unlike other Woodrow Wilson (another head-in-the-clouds type), Bush does not compromise his goals to the whims of his allies to the degree of Wilson at Versailles.
* A statement I meant to comment on in live-blogging, but didn't have the time for: "Yet liberty is the future of every nation in the Middle East, because liberty is the right and hope of all humanity." That's a really strong statement from a man that professes Christ as Lord. Yes, liberty is the right of humanity, but no, it's hardly mankind's hope, and the idea that it is inevitable is peculiarly Hegelian, and it irks me to no end that I have to defend Hegelian thought just because I claim to be a conservative. Read my lips: HEGEL, NO, HE'S NO GO!! And what is it with the worship of democracy (however they choose to define it) that has been propogated in every political science department in America? Sooooo arrogant, it makes me want to scream. To quote the Simpsons: "Jesus is our only king."
* Overall, I'm disappointed. Previously, Bush has used the SOTU to push entirely new and exciting policies, especially on the domestic level. As mouch as I love the foreign policy rah-rah, he should be doing that at least twice a week, and once per year doesn't compensate for months of neglect (Spring and Summer '05). Let's count the new policies:
- Clear statement of no nukes for Iran. Obvious, but good.
- 140 cuts, saving $14 billion. The best part was the emphasis that these programs DO NOT WORK. That's right, boys and girls, government tends to spend your money poorly. The NEA and Planned Parenthood are gonna have a cow, but that's okay by me. Do they even let artists vote? ;)
- Health care reform. Sounds cosmetic to me, but hopefully it's cheap. This may shock some, but I don't believe that it's the obligation of our government to pay for healthcare, especially since they tend to do so poorly.
- Alternative energy. We currently have something like a 45 year supply of oil, which is interesting, since in 1979, we had a 25 year supply of oil. Oil should cost $20/gallon, but does not, because, despite heavy federal funding of alternative energies, little has happened. (Y'all getting the idea that anything federally funded tends to not do well?) However, despite a lack of funding, private entities have gotten far better at finding, refining, and efficiently using fossil fuels. Money that could lower my tuition (now we've hit a sore spot) is instead being used to subsidize a relatively inefficient additive to my gasoline. By the way, the #1 painless thing Congress could do to improve fuel conservation: legislate lawnmowers. Oh, and drill in Alaska, and upgrade our refining capability.
- Upped R&D funding. I like the direct funding approach, but tax credits will just bloat the tax code, which is a pet peeve of mine.
- Math and science education. My kids will learn math and science because Jeremiah and Amos will start to be far more relevant to them otherwise (the fear of the Lord rocks as an educational tool I hear), and not because the government hired more teachers. Maybe I should become a math teacher, or does the 8th amendment forbid that?
- Laura's Helping America's Youth Initiative. Sounds like a Big Brother-Big Siter Program, which is good, and inexpensive, which is better. Again, not necessarily where the government is supposed to be (this is a niche for the church if you ask me), but practically a good example of compassionate conservatism.
* Immigration rant: the amnesty program is better than nothing (frankly, so is anything else short of surrendering the country to the immigrants), but it ignores the fact that illegal immigrants break the law, and regularly die from our inability to stop them from doing so (not that we're liable for those deaths, but stopping illegal immigration is humane, I swear). The dream solution is a wall, which will irk the Mexicans and not garner a single Hispanic vote, but that's where the next terrorist attack is entering the US from, and elections are less important than lives (at least unless losing an election results in loss of life, but elections and lives are hardly liquid assets).
* I reiterate my disappointment. The other reason Bush is a great Prez is because he cares about getting the job done more than his approval rating (and it shows), and previous SOTUs have been a reflection of that. That image is slightly tarnished in my mind after tonight, where the job on the domestic level involved little more than maintaining the status quo and pushing retreads of policies. The greatest domestic issue is immigration, not energy, and the solution fails the rule-of-law test. Now if only Bush had used 'Bunker busters' and Iran in the same sentence, or talked about that dreamy Ben Bernanke more [sigh].
Comments
Brick wall rebuttal: a giant brick wall will decrease illegal immigration, but so will worker passes. Mexicans come here, in large part, to work. There are jobs, and they pay well (far better than anything in Mexico, where the economy es en el tanko). You're a free market guy, right? Why not let the market determine immigration?
If workers had the option of coming legally, I suspect that they certainly would. A stream of LEGAL immigrant workers would certainly reduce the stream of illegals. A reduced flow of illegal border crossers would make it easier, I suspect, to catch those who do try to cross (terrorists?), and the legal immigrants are documented (hooray!), giving them the protection of rule of law, and also allowing them to participate in the great American process of paying taxes.
Everybody wins!
Posted by: Pat | February 1, 2006 08:14 PM